


Dear Catherine

by NotZiz



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotZiz/pseuds/NotZiz
Summary: Akua Sahelian tries to wield the power of friendship against the might of Sve Noc, but she makes the smallest miscalculation and sees Catherine pay for her mistake. Granted one last shot in her final moments she bets it all on the most audacious plan of her life. This is the story of Akua Sahelian as she traverses the many threads of the Stories of Catherine Foundling, looking for the one where things are finally as they should be. She doesn't know what that looks like yet, but she won't be satisfied with anything less than perfection.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Dear Catherine

Akua Sahelian panted, laying in the inky blackness, as unseemly as it was. Things had gone wrong. She had tried to ride the wave of improvisation, glory, and bullshit like Catherine, but she had miscalculated. The instinct she had for it was something that Akua still couldn’t quite grasp. She could translate the stratagems, mimic the motions, but she lacked that spark of genius. A humbling statement that would naturally never be voiced outside her own mind.

Hells, it was dangerous enough to voice it _inside_ her own mind.

She could feel Sve Noc circling around her, watching her essence bleed out from the wounds she had taken. Wary that the shade had yet another trick in her to wound them. Truth be told, she did. It wouldn’t do more than prick the twin goddesses, but after bleeding them a few times, she supposed they had finally learned caution. Instead of pouncing on her and risking being taken out in her last breath, they were willing to wait. To let her gasp out her last.

She turned her head, metaphysical as it was, and her focus to Catherine. Smothered under the weight of Night, snuffed out like a candle as she had so aptly put herself to Sve Noc just moments before. All because her gambit had failed. She hadn’t trusted her, never had. But she had brought her along. Shown her that there was so much more that she could do. Wasn’t that the cruelest thing she had done too? Shown her what she could’ve been. A genuine moment of mercy leading to a cruelty even more piercing than Akua herself could’ve imagined, because it had lead to Akua coming to the conclusion herself. Face to face with her failures and without a single excuse left to her.

While Catherine had espoused the merits of failure, of learning, she saw no merit here. Just as she had killed her own childhood friend, so by her gambit had she just as surely killed Catherine. Her failure, because it always came back to her failing, had driven her back into the pit. Into iron sharpening iron, that futile, scratching darkness where blood was drawn and the winner died just like the loser did eventually. It wasn’t even that she was supposed to be better than this. Catherine had been better, had deserved more. And Akua had cut short the most ambitious woman Creation had ever seen. The bitterness of her own failures filled her, welling up inside her as every defeat, every embarrassment came back in full. Under the weight of it all, she felt herself crumbling faster.

She was unworthy of the second chance she had been given. In the darkness, she couldn’t help but think that she had failed to repay her in kind. Oh sure, the idea of debts and fair payment was a joke. A tool of the courts, wielded like any other and discarded when past its use. But she was no longer that kind of villain. The worthiest, most brilliant of her line in an eon was what she was. She was more than this and she wanted to be more alongside Catherine. To borrow from Indrani, she was damn fucking well not going to accept this kind of bullshit.

As her essence dripped out of her, swallowed by Night, she heard the gentle call of Above. Her swan song of redemption had caught the multitude of infinite ears of the Heavens.

A last stand against the dark if she wanted.

A heavenly smite upon her foes if she wished.

A blessing for her allies if she requested.

She was, they conceded, one of the greater servants of Below. Her turning to Above in her last moments therefore got her a bit more pull, for the magnitude of the switch. Akua felt Sve Noc recoil, intimately familiar with the presence that now claimed her last moments. She would not be interrupted, not so long as she didn’t attempt to dally. Though dallying could also be bought. Maybe even a chance to continue, she may have earned enough for the slimmest of chances.

She wanted to know what had become of Catherine. It was now Below that answered.

The voices that did not speak conceded that she had not laid a malediction upon the world, nor requested any boon from Below. Instead she had left her dues. To Akua.

_Oh darling, you were always the clever one._

The things on offer to her now were better, but still not enough. Not for what she required. She asked once more. The price was steep, ridiculously so. What she asked was impossible, or near enough to that it shouldn’t matter. What she truly wished, a chance to make things right, to save Catherine, was too expensive to be purchased. She could bring Catherine back, yes, but she would not live to see it, nor would Catherine be as she had been with her Story broken. Akua was not content with half measures or lesser victories. And while Akua Sahelian, daughter of Tasia Sahelian and Doom of Liesse, had been one of the greatest servants. Catherine had been the best. 

And she got her dues.

She held the ear of Above, who grew impatient with her waffling. She held the attention of Below, whom owed her audience on behalf of Catherine. Her own cleverness would only get her so far here. She had to borrow the audacity, the creativity, and the sheer ballsiness of the woman on the floor beside her. She had no idea if it would work, but doing anything less was an insult that couldn’t be born, even in death.

She grinned a savage grin and committed to both at the same time. Conflicting requests that were enacted in an instant before the consequences could be fully seen. The cosmic machinery creaked and groaned, reality cracking as two unstoppable forces collided before either could realize to sufficiently pull back. At that moment, when she had both nothing left to spend and infinite wealth, she took her true wish. Akua felt her world twist and warp in ways that made the works of the Warlock or herself look absolutely minuscule in comparison. Faintly she heard the manic chuckling of a woman.

Reality spun and Akua found herself staggering back on cold stone floors.

The creature that was Foundling, fully in Winter’s wroth, loomed over her. Icy hand reaching out for her chest. A moment she could never forget, that she recognized in an instant. Because of course it would land her here. Everything always came back to here, to Liesse. The worst moment of her life and the mistake that had set her free. Returned to her flesh, she shivered violently at the memory. The failure that had changed everything.

Catherine ripped out her heart with that ice covered hand. “I’ll be seeing you soon,” she said.

_More than you know, dearest._


End file.
